Fair Fight (27 page)

‘I don’t tell tales,’ I said. I began to struggle to sit up. She was far too near to me for my comfort and looking at me devilish mean.

‘Our master never would leave a body to starve,’ the old baggage said. ‘He’s famous for his good treatment of his servants.’

‘He ain’t my master,’ I said.

She stood and turned her back upon me,

‘I won’t credit it. More likely she’s run away from her husband,’ she said, to Old Pious and the thin cook.

The dough-faced girl had sprung from somewhere with water splashed across the front of her apron and her sleeves rolled up to the elbow. She stood in the doorway and stared.

‘Has Mrs Bell guessed it? Did he beat you?’ asked the cook.

‘I’d have his head off if he tried it.’ The words came out slower than I meant them. I knew that in any usual case I’d be spitting, but now I couldn’t seem to rise to it.

Old Pious looked sad and shook his head. ‘I must disagree, Mrs Bell. I read Mr Webber’s letter aloud. There was no mention of her having run away. In fact,’ he put his hand to his forehead and rubbed at it as hard as if he were trying to rub out a stain, ‘there was no mention of Mrs Webber having been in London at all.’

‘I’ll not credit it,’ she said again. ‘I won’t have Mr Dryer accused of cruelty.’

I knew I could tell them things about their Mr Dryer that would shrivel the words upon her tongue.
Mind,
Ruth, if you do that
,
I told myself,
they’ll know what kind of house you come from
.

‘I ain’t accused no one,’ I said, ‘only told the truth. I’ve been left with no food, nor money to buy any.’

‘This is your husband’s responsibility,’ Mrs Bell turned about. ‘Let no one say that this household would fail its Christian duty. We will certainly see you well fed. But I won’t hear you talk against Mr Dryer. I warn you, I shan’t stand to hear it. It is your own husband at fault.’

‘Well might it be,’ I stood and stayed standing by holding onto the back of the chair, ‘I don’t care a speck for blame. I didn’t ask to be brought here, that man there insisted. I only want to know the road to Bristol. I’d rather die on the road than stay another minute here, in your scaly old master’s house. He’s not my master, nor ever will be. He can have his bleeding arse fucked by the devil.’

I scandalised the place; every person in the room gasped aloud. Old bracket-face looked as though I’d handed her a bounty; her mug drew itself in at the brow, her lips pressed so thin as to be white, but her eyes were gleeful. It would’ve been comical if it weren’t for my shaking legs and cramping belly.

I’d not give her the pleasure of turning me out; pride alone drove my legs onward.

The cold of the air outside was like a backhand to the face; I near fell over with the shock of it. When once I breathed it in a few times, it had the opposite effect and pressed me on, across the yard, to where I knew the road began that would take me back toward the cottage. I’d not stop when once I reached it. I’d never set foot in that stinking coffin again. Raised voices behind me seemed to be shouting at each other; I felt a dull gladness at that.

‘Miss,’ came from behind me, and I turned to find the thin cook coming quickly across the yard, a cloth bag in one hand. She stopped and held it out. I took it. She wrapped her arms around herself against the chill. For a moment she only stood and looked at me, and then she shook her head sorrowfully.

‘It’s not right to turn you out,’ she said, ‘though I call your language shocking. You should pray forgiveness.’

‘Please,’ I said, ‘which is the road to Bristol?’

‘You cannot mean to walk so far.’

‘Which road?’

‘Take the drive back to the gatehouse and turn left,’ she said. ‘Saltford is three miles on. Someone may take you, if you speak sweetly and mind your tongue.’

I was already walking away. I should’ve thanked her for the bag but somehow I’d already forgotten it.
Turn left
, I thought only,
three miles
.

‘You’ll not get far, ill-mannered as you are,’ she called to my back, but I didn’t turn.

I found I could only walk by watching my feet. If I looked up the world became wavy and I knew I’d fall. If I watched my shoes, the ragged hem of my dress, I could see the solid road and know it was as firm as it should be. I could be sure I was going in the right direction because there was only one direction to travel, down the hill, toward the cottage. I kept moving in my circle: road, shoes, muddy dress.

When at last I came near to the cottage, I’d not look up at it. I kept on trudging slowly, watching the foot of its walls slide past till I was well beyond it. I walked around it and turned left onto the hedged lane.
Now
, I thought.
Now I’m on the Bristol road
.

Only when I’d gone too far did I think of the basket with my dressing gown, my feathers, the portrait of the girl, the turnip and oats. I remembered too, the muslin Tom had sent.
I’d have sold that
,
I thought,
for a place in a cart
.
I’d not turn back, mind. I’d not stop moving till I reached the docks, the masts of ships, the damp bed in the convent cellar.

When I did fall I was so deep inside my thoughts that I didn’t feel it. I was thinking of the convent’s front door, when I felt a pain in my hip and found that I was lying on the ground. The hunger was back, but not like a rat now, more a gentle ache. I remembered the bag that the thin cook had given me. I’d not looked inside it; it must be food. I sat up in my mind, but not my body. I couldn’t even twitch my fingers. I watched the sky for a while, till it grew dark or my eyes closed. I didn’t know which, and didn’t find I cared.

PART SIX

Charlotte

16

M
y eyes had been forced open by all I had seen at the fair; I could not close them but neither could I act. The house seemed to shrink about me, more gloomy than ever. I saw anew how old and heavy was the furniture, how dark the rooms. Whenever Granville was from home I had been in the habit of sitting only in my dressing room, making believe that the whole of the house was pretty and papered in elegant colours. Now my sanctuary seemed too poky to bear. I had changed but the world had not, and I could not shift from my narrow place in it.

I do not remember ever being told directly of Granville’s plan to make that chivalrous brute into a Champion of England. I picked the knowledge up piecemeal, in his conversations with my brother and Mr Bowden. When once I did understand, it seemed something bright to hope for. I found myself imagining that tree-trunk of a man raising his arms before a crowd that stretched on to the horizon, perhaps to the King himself. If that were to happen, where would my husband be? Where would I be? Surely, then, we might go sometimes to London. We might have gentlemen visit and bring their wives. I might make a circle of acquaintance, I might be allowed another horse so that I could take the carriage out when Granville was from home. I might call upon my aunt. It was easier, always, to be bold in my imaginings. If my husband trained a fighting champion perhaps I would be a little braver myself.

The sight of that lady boxer had sparked a longing for boldness in my own breast. On one of those mornings soon after the fair, as Mrs Bell served me my chocolate, I found myself gazing at the keys at her waist and finding it unbearable. I was alone – I had been at breakfast in just that way on countless occasions and yet this day I sat up very straight.

Without determining whether or not I meant my words I said, ‘I have decided it is time I learn the running of the house, Mrs Bell; you will show me the accounts and turn the keys over to me.’

My legs set up trembling. I was glad of the tablecloth. I chided myself,
Why, in the name of all that can be called good, are you afraid?
I could not be afraid of Mrs Bell. Perhaps it was the idea of change itself. And yet, I longed for it. My feelings churned so that I could not meet her eyes but I would not be cowed before her. I brought my gaze as close as I could and found myself taking in the details of her ear, the wispy hairs escaping from her cap. There seemed to me a long silence before she said,

‘Yes, madam. When should you like to be taught?’

I did not object to the word ‘taught’, although I might have done.

‘Come to me as soon as you have done with your tasks for the morning, Mrs Bell.’

‘My tasks are never done, madam, but I shall come as soon as ever I can.’

I nodded and began to eat. My hands were not quite steady. Inside my heart I responded,
Well then, soon you shall have one less task to plague you
, but I did not rebuke her out loud.

Mrs Bell did not make me wait over-long but even so, by the time she came to me in the parlour, her arms weighed down by a huge ledger, I was regretting my impulsiveness. I should never be able to do it, I had never before dealt with columns of figures; Mama had only just begun to talk of teaching me to manage accounts when she grew sick. I could not look glad to see Mrs Bell then. My legs again wished to tremble; this time I forbade them sternly and they kept still. I could not speak, however.

Mrs Bell placed the book before me upon the table and stood at my shoulder just as a governess would. She opened the ledger. Great columns, just as I had feared, with neat and incomprehensible numbers inside them.

‘You can see I have kept them nice, madam,’ she said, as though warning me not to spot the pages. ‘What do you wish to be shown?’

I did not know what to say. I could not say, you will have to teach me everything. I looked down at the book again. Here were columns: glover, haberdasher, lace maker, breech maker. I saw more than a guinea paid out for ‘linen and muslin’, though what use this cloth had been put to I could not have said, nor guessed whether the price had been dear or cheap.

‘These are my accounts, by which I mean, the housekeeping books,’ Mrs Bell said at last, when still I kept silent. ‘Mr Dryer holds accounts for the stable bills, the saddle maker and the like.’

‘Yes, I see,’ I said.

Mrs Bell turned the page. Here were columns for lamp-oil, coal, meat, milk and all sorts besides. Here was the column for servants’ wages. I did not wish to learn after all. I wanted only to hold the keys – but perhaps I did not even wish for that. Mrs Bell would be always coming to me. I felt strange, peevish and sick, my baby turning in my stomach as though disgusted with its mama’s weakness.

‘The running of a household is quite a task, madam,’ Mrs Bell said, ‘and Mr Dryer, as you know, can be quite particular. Shall you like me to sit beside you and guide you through the ordering of goods?’

The very idea of her sitting beside me, of our heads together like schoolchildren over a primer! But, then, Mama had managed her own house; she had taken charge of everything.

‘No,’ I said, despising myself. ‘No, take them away. I am tired. You may send me wine.’

The keys clinked at her waist as she left.

Alone in my dressing room I took up my tambour hoop and pulled free the unfinished cloth, with the lady upon her donkey. In its place I laid a new piece, not large, but just enough to screw into place. I took up my pencil and made soft lines to show where I would place her. Her skirts would be pinned up and her head high. She was to stand in a ring of silken cord. I thought I could knot the silks to make them stand out from the screen. I had never seen this done, but I thought I knew now how I might do it, six silks, twisted about each other, as I imagined one might make rope. I would not depict blood upon her. She was to stand ready and proud with her hands raised before her.

Granville was from home even more often than he had used to be. I found myself restless. For the first time in our marriage I felt a little flutter at the sound of his boots in the hall and was glad to have my husband home. Even more of a novelty was my new forbearance for my brother. It was not that I enjoyed his company any better or that he was grown less boorish, but that I found myself listening to their talk with something like interest. When they spoke of boxing now I could imagine the scent and the atmosphere. When they spoke of one fighter’s victory over another, I knew now that a real man had spilt the hot blood of a fellow and that real hearts beat the harder for seeing it.

Mrs Bell came and knocked upon the door of my dressing room and I threw a shawl over the hoop of my tambour, where the lady boxer’s raised arms were slowly growing pink beneath my needle.

‘I have had word, madam, that Mr Dryer will be at home to dine and will be bringing some gentlemen in company with him.’

I thought her eyes touched upon my shawl-covered screen. I thought,
I will not leave it where she might see, when once I put it away
.

‘Do we know the names of these gentlemen?’ I asked her.

‘Mr Dryer did not say, madam. Only that we must make table for four persons.’

I said only, ‘Then it could be anyone at all. Make sure the dinner is a good one.’

I left her to decipher what might be best pleasing to the gentlemen.

When once she had closed the door again I found I could not settle but rose and paced about. I looked at my own face in the glass; I thought my complexion more sallow than usual.

Granville would not like me to make myself too fine – I had Lucy dress me in a grey cr
ê
pe gown and a cap with silver beads about its edge. The gown had sleeves, so my arms were well hidden. When Lucy was gone, leaving only the lingering scent of lye soap and mutton fat, I drew the paint all the way down my throat. I had time to paint the backs of my hands so that I might leave off my gloves at dinner. I would keep them on until the introductions had been made, of course. I could not give my scarred palm to gentlemen. When once this poor effort was complete I had to be satisfied.

I stood in front of the looking-glass. The dress, at least, was pretty. I picked up my skirts and held them as though they were pinned at the knee.
How brave she is
, I thought,
to stand so exposed before a crowd
.
How brave and how brazen
. Through my thin stockings my scarred legs showed mottled, like a fresh-plucked goose.

I dropped the silk from my hands and tried a boxing stance, holding my fists before me as she had done. It felt surprisingly natural, being not so different from the ‘en garde’ stance one adopts before fencing. Perry had used to have me fence with him whenever he came home from school for the summer. We held sticks and I would do anything I could to hold him off; it was not really fencing. I would wave my stick at him and he would drive me backward until I turned and ran, or fell over my skirts. When once I became really frightened and thrust my stick toward him he was too surprised to stop me, and I struck him a good poke in the stomach. He played not so often with me after that, but said that I was too dull to make a good match with. I had learnt to stand en garde, however. And I had learnt that my brother could be driven off, if I struck him where it hurt.

Now I stood en garde, with my head up and my fists before me, and thrust them at the mirror. I drew on my dinner gloves – a very pretty dove grey, almost silver – and pretended that they were the padded ones the pugilists wore. I tried to make my eyes fierce.

I hopped from foot to foot, as the lady boxer did. Immediately my feet caught my petticoats and I stumbled and stopped. I could not risk a tear to my gown. In any case, I did not look fierce, I looked only ridiculous. My skirts were not pinned up, my gloves were not padded, and I was not free to do anything. In a moment the bell would ring and I would walk down the stairs and talk politely with gentlemen.

After all that the gentlemen were only my brother Perry and Mr George Bowden.

Mrs Bell had defined a good dinner as mutton-ham, asparagus and force-meat balls. Perry, I was sure, had been enjoying his wine before he arrived. His face was flushed and his brow shone.

I was seated beside Mr Bowden, which meant I need not look at him. He could not catch my eye unless I turned my head. I was glad; his conversation seemed always to be teasing, or to have layers of meaning. That evening I did not want to be bothered with the unravelling of them.

‘This night will be a high treat for the fancy,’ Perry was saying. ‘A real set-to, as it should be done. If your man stands up well this night, we shall all be able to back him with the greatest confidence.’

‘You, back my man?’ my husband said. ‘You may lay down your guinea, and welcome, but I shan’t look for it.’

‘What do you think of this, Mrs Dryer?’ Mr Bowden said. ‘Your husband is as set on this fellow as a man might be on a maid.’

‘With very different intentions,’ Granville said.

‘Not so different,’ Perry said, ‘pounding, sweating and the exchange of money!’ He thought himself the highest wit.

‘Please, Mr Sinclair, my wife is present,’ Granville said. I knew he was displeased because in every usual case he called Perry by his Christian name.

‘Charlotte is a barbarian,’ Perry said. ‘We all took note of her, screaming out for blood.’

Mr Bowden turned to me, obliging me to turn toward him also. I kept my eyes upon his hand, tapping his wineglass with one finger.

‘Were you much shocked, Mrs Dryer?’

‘I was.’ The image of those terrible, meaty hands rose before me. Mr Bowden’s fingers on the wineglass were not meaty. They were the hands of a violinist. I shook both thoughts from my mind. ‘Would you care for more wine, Mr Bowden?’

‘I have wine aplenty, Mrs Dryer,’ he said. His finger stilled. ‘You, however, have none. Should you like some?’

I was trying, at that time, to resist temptation in company.

‘Let us all have wine,’ Perry said. ‘More wine, Bell!’

I watched Mrs Bell’s face as she poured, to see how she liked being addressed thus. I thought the very placidity of her face betrayed her. She hesitated over my cup.

‘For everyone, Bell! Pour it out and let’s have done,’ my brother cried.

She filled my glass. No one could tell me I might not drink when it was pushed upon me thus. I took a long swallow and felt its warm fingers stroke my throat. Even as I did so, I looked at my brother and wondered if I might not come to resemble him, if I did not stem my appetites for wine and liquor. I should hate to be in company and have all about me think me foolish and a bore. To quell the thought I took another deep draught of my wine.

‘But dear Mrs Dryer, you do confess to being a little thrilled, despite yourself?’ Mr Bowden’s voice had dropped and become intimate.

‘It is thrilling,’ Perry boomed. ‘Of course it is. Charlotte need not confess – you need only look at her. She was like a hound after a fox.’

I felt my face grow hot and begin to tingle as it had at the fair. I dropped my eyes to my lap. All of the gentlemen had turned to look at me; I could feel their eyes upon me even with my head bowed. I did not like to be examined.

The gentlemen grew tired of me and began to talk amongst themselves. I looked up at last, toward my husband. I could look at him most easily of all the gentlemen. He saw my eyes upon him.

‘No harm has been done you, has it?’

‘None,’ I said. My smile was stiffer than I would have liked it.

‘And you think the fellow a fine one? You approve of my choice?’

‘I am glad it is he you favour and not the other,’ I said.

Granville nodded at me seriously.

‘The other man has clumsy form,’ he said, as if I knew about such things. I blinked and looked back toward my plate. I had not thought the fellow clumsy – although, now I considered it, he was like a battering ram, bludgeoning all he could reach. Perhaps it was the same thing.

‘But my dear Mrs Dryer,’ Mr Bowden said, ‘what would you say if I told you that your brother and I thought him not clumsy, but a fine pugilist? Where would you lay your coin then?’